Best Friend
by preciselypotter
Summary: Neville never had a best friend. And then he met Luna Lovegood. Crazy, zany, otherworldly, openhearted "Loony" Luna Lovegood. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** Surely not.

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Best Friend

Neville never had a best friend. He was the fifth boy in his dorm, the fifth wheel. Harry-and-Ron, Dean-and-Seamus. They were paired off, best friends, stuck together like glue or something finer. Even when Harry-and-Ron had a fight, there was always Hermione and Dean-and-Seamus for one of them to fall back on.

But Neville never had someone like that.

He wasn't exactly unlikeable. Everyone was nice to him and he was nice to everyone. "Everyone" meaning the Gryffindors, and the Hufflepuffs, and the non-arrogant Ravenclaws, of course. He couldn't count Slytherin.

For four years he was the fifth wheel sort of bloke, with little reprieve. Four years he watched as pairs went by of boys and girls who would be mates forever and ever, and a little seed of loneliness grew and grew inside him, until it was a living creature made of solitude and jealously. Neville didn't talk about it, because he didn't want to complain. But it was there.

And then…

And then he met Luna Lovegood.

Crazy, zany, otherworldly, openhearted "Loony" Luna Lovegood.

She terrified him.

It was sort of an accident how they'd met, simply sitting in a compartment where she was and listening to her increasingly strange talk. Ginny had said she was alright, and Ginny was alright because she was willing to be his friend, and she was sweet to him. Not a lot of girls were sweet to Neville, and he quite liked it. So he believed Ginny, and stuck around.

Things got stranger, as they were bound to do with someone raised on _The_ _Quibbler_.

Luna wore radishes in her hair. She would start dancing and waving her arms about to the whisper of the wind. She opened her eyes wide and talked of heliopaths, and her conviction was so great that Neville believed her while she spoke.

People thought it strange he should be spending time with her. Not only was she nutty, and picked on, but also a lowly fourth year – not worthy to spend time with a fifth year such as Neville was. Her being a fourth year wasn't her fault, he reasoned, and carried on.

The first time he saw how brilliant Luna was, they were in the Dumbledore's Army. While Neville sweated and slaved and struggled to improve (which Harry-and-Ron said he did with flying colors), Luna had a gift, although strange and flighty in its execution.

She understood magic a little differently than everyone else. To her, it was a dear friend she could trust, something she had to coax and congratulate.

Magic was her playmate, but Neville thought she _was_ magic.

They fought together in the Department of Mysteries. He moved to protect her, she moved to protect him. It was only at that point, when she was injured in the fight, that Neville understood he really and truly cared about her.

No, he didn't fancy her or anything.

She was a little beyond his depth in that area, although he thought she was pretty in an odd sort of way.

Neville could only describe the feeling as "mates." She was his, and he was hers. Funny, how neither of them had ever had a best friend before. But one day, in the beginning of sixth year while the world went mad, Luna slipped her hand into his.

"I've never had a friend before," she said conversationally. "Now I've got several. But I could do with a few more."

He silently agreed.

Around the same time, Neville realized that organism inside him that spoke of all his inadequacies and loneliness was beginning to shrivel up and die. Now Harry-and-Ron-and-Hermione, Ginny, and Luna were all his friends. He didn't have best friend still, but he did have friends and that was something more than all the acquaintances he'd claimed to have for nearly five years. When he looked back, it all started with the train ride at the start of his fifth year.

In his sixth year, also, his classmates were starting to pair up in another way. It had started in fifth year, but now everywhere he looked romance existed.

Ron-and-Lavendar battled for time with Harry-and-Ron, while Harry-and-Ron-and-Hermione was fractured. Dean-and-Ginny spent time with Seamus-and-Parvati, and the other houses had even more pairings to their name. Friendships became a little stranger.

Neville mentioned this to Luna one day in November.

"It's the Flying Paraxpas," she said knowledgeably.

"What are those?"

According to Luna, they were something like cupids, but invisible and the arrows they shot were filled with a sort of poison that made even the most logical person turn into a bumbling idiot for love. It at least sounded accurate, though not reasonable or practical.

"I'll never have that happen to me," Neville said morosely. "No one would want me."

"No one wants me either," Luna agreed. "I'm too unlikeable for that."

"You're plenty likeable!" he said. He couldn't explain why he was so fervent. "You're fantastic! It just takes a while to get used to you."

Which for the most part he had, and that was a blessing unto itself, because all of his friends were in their other pairings. And Neville had never been in the first sort, so sticking with Luna wasn't just for fun anymore, it was for necessity. No one else got him – or tried to get him – the way she did.

And then, one spring afternoon as her O.W.L.s drew close and he studied for his own finals, it made clear and perfect sense.

Neville-and-Luna.

Luna-and-Neville.

One and the same, best friends, a pairing of their own. Neville hadn't realized that sort of friendship would sneak up on him. He'd been all prepared to meet someone, maybe a good bloke outside of Hogwarts, and think to himself, "That'll be my best friend." Instead, it grew slowly and sturdily, and Neville wasn't lonely anymore because he couldn't be, with the ever bizarre Luna Lovegood around to keep him company.

He said this to Luna the next time he saw her, as she strolled down a hallway with her bag on her shoulder and a taunting seventh year behind her.

"Well, of course we are," Luna said, surprised he had only just figured this out.

"Right," Neville said.

"Neville, did you ever think we weren't going to be?" she asked in a reprimanding tone.

"Oh, I… er…" there was really nothing coming to mind, although he felt he _should_ say something.

The taunting seventh year didn't let up, and began to raise his voice with even ruder comments to throw at Luna. So Neville decided words weren't worth all that much, and drew his wand on the seventh year with a glare and a promise in his eyes to have retribution.

It was perhaps Neville's best Silencing spell ever performed.

Even Flitwick said so as he gave Neville a detention.

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(Author's Note): I've always wanted to write something about Neville and Luna's friendship, but it's never struck me until now as to how to go about it. Neville's fun to write, but Luna is hard. She's not all there, and there's a fine line between writing her funny, and writing her silly. Hopefully I've stayed on the "funny" side of the line. Let me know, would you?

Please Review ^_^


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